As many of you know the US EPA is considering mandating(?) 15% ethanol in fuels, perhaps in late 2010.

Politics aside, what would be the impact of 15% ethanol on our e34s?

EPA is testing only a very small number of newer vehicles and is initially saying that 2001 and newer vehicles NOT should experience any issues. What about older vehicles. Another way to get older vehicles off the road??

Wolf-Strong

12-15-2009, 09:38 AM

Well the problem is that being alcohol, it will just eat away at anything rubber, which unfortunately a lot of cars have a lot of. Hopefully if this goes through, we will start seeing conversion kits with different types of seals to make cars Ethanol friendly. We see the problems with Ethanol already in the current lineup with the 335/535i blowing through fuel pumps because of this exact reason; the alcohol eats away at the rubber seals in the HPFP.

CloudNine

12-15-2009, 11:40 AM

We see the problems with Ethanol already in the current lineup with the 335/535i blowing through fuel pumps because of this exact reason; the alcohol eats away at the rubber seals in the HPFP.

Horse Hooey. Manufacturers have known about and addressed ethanol for a long time now. Small amounts of ethanol, up to 10%, have no effect whatsoever, even on older cars. My 1965 Corvair used to love gasohol. All hoses, gaskets and seals have long since been made resistant to drying out (alcohol does not "eat away" away at anything).

As for my 1990 535i, I have driven it on mostly gasohol, and varied the percentage of ethanol up to 25%, depending on availability and price of e85. There is no effect whatsoever, except for slightly reduced fuel mileage.

In your car, you have probably driven on 15% alcohol and not even known about it. Do you think that when alcohol is cheap, like it is now, that the percentage won't tend to creep up by "accident"?

Wolf-Strong

12-16-2009, 12:05 AM

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=ethanol+rubber

mikes95540i

12-16-2009, 10:17 AM

Horse hooey back at ya!
I've worked in the marine industry for 30 years and I can say for a fact that ethanol does break down seals, hoses, and especially fiberglass fuel tanks. I had to cut out the fuel tanks in my sailboat and replace them because the inside of the tanks were dissolving. This also required removing the diesel engine and replacing everything from the clogged fuel injectors to o rings, pump bladders, and just about everything else you can think of. Boat US is compiling a list of boat owners that have had this problem and the numbers are truly astounding.
Well thats my two cents worth from the marine side of things.

malestrum

01-04-2010, 09:11 PM

I would imagine you could use the stuff the 100% alcohol guys use to keep their systems alive. Its called a fuel lubricant. Naturally you wouln't want to use as much as they do seeing how these use 100% and u use between 10%-20% alcohol so one bottle should last several fill-ups. They even come in different smells like chocolate. lol 100% alcohol smells so bad when burnt.

Tourburgring

01-05-2010, 08:07 AM

Pure Rubber seals and hoses haven't been used in vehicle fuel systems for decades. There is virtually no reason to be concerned about Ethanol in your fuel as far as reliability or hardware deterioration is concerned. We have had ethanol in our fuel in Canada for years and my '72 911 runs just fine as does every other vehicle (both pre and post 2001) I have owned has. The only downside is slightly reduced gas mileage due to the lower energy value of ethanol vs. gasoline.

malestrum

01-05-2010, 08:20 AM

That's a good point. The EPA in America mandated that all petro sold contain 10%-20% ethenol 20 years ago. Car makers had to start using material that would stand up to that change.